My dirty life and times.

March 2007

March 30, 2007

Here in the airport lounge waiting for my morning flight, the television is full of imprisoned British sailors in Iran - the sentiment here is that a small incident has now been saber-rattled into a massive stand-off, that Britain has been hoovered into Washington's drive towards a quick confrontation with Tehran. Quick as in before the Bush term is up, before Cheney must leave the Vice-Presidential manse, before the Democratic president (whomever she may be) is sworn in.

We seem to be hell-bent once again into taking on another enemy in rapid force, and the Bush Administration appears thrilled at the stand-in Tonkin hostages in royal blue.

During my brief but enjoyable visit to Westminster on Monday, you could sense change in the air. I'd never been behind the scenes in Parliament before, but I've spent enough time in City Hall, Congress, and the Bronx County Courthouse to easily sense the rill of political shift flowing through the hallways. Blair's government is now measured in weeks here, and there is the glow of opportunity and change glistening on the gold leaf throughout the House of Commons. Will the long-standing Labour Partner in Waiting Gordon Brown come to power as expected, and for how long? What about the young upstarts in Labour? What about the newly-minted, blog-savvy Conservatives and their YouTubian leader David Cameron?

I posed few of these questions to young Tom Watson, MP (and I say young, because it's relative...to me) - after all, Tom's my friend, not an interview subject, and he was standing me to lunch besides. This was the first time I've met Tom in person, though we've corresponded now as well-named bloggers for three years. Needless to say, we hit it off - funny how that is with bloggers. Correspond first, meet later. Already a familiar voice. In any case, Mr. Watson arranged for the kind of tour that is a dream for PBS junkies from America - all Robing Room and paneled hallways, members' balcony and tea room. Slightly fevered though I was with sad American flu, I loved it.

I must be careful here, but I will attempt an observation on behalf of my Right Honorable Labour friend. It seemed to me, as we breezed about, that Tom Watson is seen by his colleagues as a man who will return to government in some prominent role in the near future. His resignation as assistant defense minister was quite the story last year - all intrigue and rumor - and it helped start the exit door opening for Tony Blair. But this old political reporter could see in the greetings, in some of the hints,handshakes, and by-play - and frankly, in the enthusiasm that greeted his American guest - that Tom is reckoned as a man to be reckoned with.

That's a good thing, as is the "special relationship" gone horribly awry under George Bush; it's worth renewing, and not just militarily. At Oxford, where I spent the bulk of the week, the Skoll Forum for Social Entrepreneurship brought together some of the best minds in devising new models to help the world's poor. Resolutely international, it was nonetheless a clear product of a British-American partnership and the energy there was palpable (my blog posts are here).

Taking a break from the all the good-doing, I wandered happily into the past for two hours or so mid-week, just after the fever finally broke. Oxford is a beautiful place, of course, especially if you love old buildings and gardens as I do. Some of the old Norman walls to this town still exist, and the colleges have sprung up inside of them. These things happen slowly over the course of a thousand years. But Oxford's no museum piece - it's busy, loud, and smoggy (every bus in the Midlands seems to cram its sheet metal shell down the High Street). I stayed at the very fine Cotswold Lodge Hotel, old-fashioned in a good way - Victorian building, walk up, old woodwork, helpful staff.

Walking into town brought me past the Eagle and Child pub, the local for JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis back in the day (locals call it the Bird and the Bastard). On my walking break, I wandered down one particularly antique lane and found myself at the gate of New College - they call it "new," of course, because it was established in 1379 by William of Wykeham. Inside, I walked through the old cloister, and had a look in the chapel, with its El Greco painting of St James and Jacob Epstein statue of Lazarus Rising from the Dead. Some of the key scenes in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire were filmed here.

But the gardens knocked me over. Inside the ancient city walls, the lawn meanders around a giant ivy-engulfed mound in the center, where students (Hugh Grant attended here) climb to a perch that gives them a giant's view of the trees. This was a work day, and the garden staff was busy in its early-spring work - pruning and cultivation were on the list. Brilliant clumps of daffodils caught the sun. And a pair of young students lazed on the grass. He read Proust, the pretty one had Joyce: I noticed as I clodded by.

And it occurred to me again that Oxford is a city of lovers, really. Concentrated with students in full, young bloom, it is an utterly romantic place - not so much for its past, as for its youthful present. This got me thinking of my own college years, and the excitement of books and a tiny room to be shared. Lots of pairs here. Lots of books, and tiny rooms, and corner seats in pubs and tea shops. A very romantic place.

March 28, 2007

I took an hour's break from work and walked around the city today. Stopped in a New College (so nouveau, 1300 or so) and was entranced by the gardens behind the little gate from the street. They're built inside some of the remaining Medievel town walls. The daffodils were up and young lover sprawled on the grass in youth, with a wide world ahead. Then I went back to work.

This was the view last evening as I took a short stroll after the opening session of the Skoll World Forum for Social Entrepreneurship here in Oxford. I'm blogging the conference at onPhilanthropy, where I'm the publisher. Some tremendous ideas and personalities, so please tune in.

March 27, 2007

The Right Honorable Tom Watson and the Occasionally Honorable Tom Watson at the House of Commons. Mr. W, MP, stood me to lunch and a fascinating insider's tour of Parliament yesterday. Details to come.

March 25, 2007

My bags and packed, and I'm ready to roll - heading out to the UK tonight for a week's business trip. London for part of Monday and then Oxford for the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, where I'll be blogging for onPhilanthropy.com and HuffPo. Here as well, if I get some time to look around. Meanwhile, a few things came to my notice that seemed vital to share before hitting the Van Wyk.

Lance Mannion does as good a job as anyone at making the progressive's case for Hillary Clinton - he's not endorsing her; indeed, like many Dems, he's pleased with the overall field (as am I). Lots of depth there. But he takes the issue of gender on straight-away, and it's a very good read.

I've been spending some time on the Social Media Club blog of late. Plenty there if you're interested in the cultural and business repercussions of the explosion in social networking online. (I've been surprised, by the way, with how much time I now spend on Facebook - it's a daily visit now). Social Media Club is the brainchild of Chris Heuer and my old buddy Howard Greenstein, and it's a chapter-based organization of real-world gatherings. Jason Chervokas has an interesting post up on the battle for online video distribution and revenues in the context of porn's success.

Ralph DeMarco looks back to the start of the war in the Sawpit, and finds a strange rationale for unilateral military action: the strange desire to allow other national populations to control their own destinies. As Ralph notes: "Saddam was our son-of-a-bitch until he invaded Kuwait."

Brendan has a nice and unexpected post on cops. A taste: "Cops don’t make the laws – and some of
them enjoy enforcing billy-club laws too much, but they are
overwhelmingly decent people who are forced by their jobs into the
sewer-pipe of humanity. Sometimes they can’t get the smell out of their
noses."

Finally, a very happy blogoversary to Blue Girl (two) and Tony Alva (one), a gentlewoman and a scholar.

March 24, 2007

Steve Gilliard has been dealt a lousy hand, but he's still in the game and for that his friends - real and virtual - are thankful. For those who may not know Steve: he's a voluble and iconoclastic blogger, a New Yorker with a deft writing style and a strong sense of justice. I've met him only once or twice, but Steve's voice has been part of my day for years now. He and his blogging partner Jen run the prolific News Blog, a tough, front-of-the-cab view of politics, war, culture, media, business and technology.

To call Steve outspoken is to call Kansas flat; his voice is millions of square miles worth of attitude and opinion. I'd venture that none of his readers agrees with everything Steve writes - just when you think you've got him pegged, he'll smack you. On race relations and New York politics, there are few keener observers than Gilliard. He knows food, roots for the Mets, despises the political status quo, hates blowhards and phonies, and is a hell of a military historian besides.

So news of Steve's medical crisis hit his readership hard, indeed. Jen's updates have had us all on edge now for a couple of weeks. There has been some slight improvement of late, but the big man's not out of the woods. Today, Jen worried that Steve will be angry when he wakes up and reads all the medical updates and comments on his health - that most personal of subjects.

But I don't think so. I think Steve will realize with a certainty that few of us are ever so privileged to feel that he is a highly-valued member of his community, that his virtual family is huge, and that his work is worth all the long hours and sleepless nights. Read the comments over at his blog, where volunteers are writing posts and handling tech duties to keep it running. The dude has atheists lighting candles.

The other night, we had a little gathering under the newcritics banner - where Steve gave me a couple of guest posts right before he fell ill - half a dozen bloggers, a few libations, and plenty of talk at a midtown bar. After a while, the conversation turned to Gilliard. We ordered a new round and raised our glasses to Steve. So here's the toast: to our blogging brother, the richest man in town.

March 21, 2007

How wonderful was it to watch Senator James Inhofe literally melt under those klieg lights of George Bush's today, as Al Gore had him for a light afternoon snack during his triumphant return to capital hill as the most popular ex-politician in America. Inhofe tried to bully Gore in a sweating, glistening McCarthyist bully's mask of repressed right wing hatred. And big Oscar-winning Al just flicked him away, grinning slyly as Barbara Boxer waved her Democratic gavel like Jose Reyes waiting on a fastball. Inhofe's face grew red and he laughed like a maniac when Boxer told him, "elections have consuquences, Senator."

Strangely, Gore got a better welcome over on the House side, where Republicans questioned his recommendations on energy policy, but treated him with the respect of his former offices. Why, ole Denny Hastert even agreed that the scientific debate over whether global warming exists was essentially over.

Inhofe's staff tried one of those old-school "when did you stop beating your wife" tricks, attempting to trap Gore into admitting his own energy usage at his Nashville home. Swing, miss. But not to disgraced former law professor Glenn Instapundit:

A gimmick? Yes. A stunt? Yes. But it's one that Gore has opened himself
up to. That's the problem with moralistic, messianic crusading --
people expect you to live up to it.

Hee hee, that's insta-panic right there - panic that Al Gore is bathing in incredible national and even worldwide popularity - that he accomplished more by losing the Presidency than George Bush did by winning it. Panic that Gore is about to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

And there was Al Gore, sitting in testimony as the grand winner of our political times - even as Republicans refused to testify under oath about their roles in the scandal over the political dumping of U.S. Attorneys. The great national nightmare for the shrinking right is just beginning.

March 18, 2007

Question of the Day: why are Tim Russert and NBC News leading the public rehabilitation of the disgraced ex-Congressman Tom DeLay?

Listening to DeLay insist to former Vice Admiral Joe Sestak, now a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, that his call to bring the troops home from the failed Iraq adventure amounts to "surrender" is a sickening Sunday morning spectacle that brings the coffee back into the throat - along with the bitter, acid taste of our great moral cowardice.

"Those are not patriots, in my mind, who are talking about impeaching the Commander in Chief...that's aiding and abetting the enemy," DeLay just told Tim Russert with the straight and composed face that only comes with abject stupidity and the absence of light and reason. This a man, after all, who once argued from the well of the House that the Columbine massacre happened "because our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized [sic] out of some primordial soup of mud."

Then Russert holds up DeLay's book No Retreat, No Surrender - My Story of Personal Corruption and Deceit (at least, I think that's the full title) and says "there are some interesting things in this book" about current Republican leaders.

The Russertonian chuckle of appreciation. The tilted head and eye twinkle. We may want to talk further, Mr. DeLay - now that you're dishing.

He smiles goofily and looks over at Tom DeLay as a recruit - an appreciate insider, a proud Washingtonian. DeLay, it is clear, is being formally welcomed to the punditry. He can expect to chit-chat now with Russert and Matthews and Andrea Mitchell over the crudite at one of the gold-leafed salons in those nifty 19th century manses up from the canal.

It's Tom and Tim, now. Gentlemen who may occasionally differ, but can do so with their pinkies in the air - this son of Buffalo VFW halls and this son of Texan extermination.

Climbers both. Insiders now in partnership.

If it's Sunday, it must be Meet the Press.

The venue for lies and American tragedy, and one of the insidious media platforms that assisted in launching a war that has taken more than 3,000 American lives for nothing. Nothing at all.

The chummy tone that envelops DeLay's appearances on Chris Matthews'
Hardball was bad enough, but it is an insult to the moral intelligence
of viewers to allow DeLay (resembling a tucked-in orange with each
makeover) a seat on the panel of an Iraq-war discussion, an insult
compounded by the presence of that poison mushroom Richard Perle
dismissing the question of whether invading Iraq was worth it as
"academic." But even Perle's greatest detesters (like me) would never
consider him stupid. Evil, perhaps, but not stupid. DeLay is not only
stupid but mean as dirt, mean-and-stupid being the signature trait of
the modern sunbelt conservative.

March 17, 2007

The recent news
that the Irish and the English come from the same ancient genetic
stock, by and large, should be no shock to anyone who contemplates the
greatest contribution of the cultural Irish diaspora: the language of
their sometime enemies across the narrow Irish Sea. Now that the
mitochondrial mystery has been solved at Oxford, we may as well be
honest about the great irony of the grand old land. English and its artistic advancement is the great cultural achievement of the Irish. [Full post and comments over at newcritics].

March 13, 2007

The digerati are all agog at another distributed social web service we never knew we needed and didn't ask for. Twitter is something of a cross between instant messages and text messaging, by way of blogging - tiny status reports that users share with the world. Having received several invites over the last two weeks (which seems to be the total history of this red-hot little venture), and being curious about these things in general, I signed on.

And now I know about Howard's travels, and Jason's workouts, and Fred's Blackberry, and Jason's listening habits. That's, er, nice, I guess. I mean, I do want to stay in touch. Really. But I don't need alerts sent to my cell phone every time a buddy is watching Mayberry RFD on cable and wants to alert his network. Not necessary. And frankly, given the pace of my days of late, it doesn't rise to the level of must-see networking.

So I was about to pass on Twitter. And then, this message flashed across my Twitterstream:

Driving down to West Cork used to be a quiet pleasure.Now it's a melancholy chore.Still, the sky is absolutely full of stars.

Wow. Poetry. Quite possibly the best social networking post I'd ever read. And I thought, hmmm - this Twitter thing may have legs, but not in the way its founders or a few self-obsessed wired wonksters may think. See, Twitter is a poetry machine.

That beautiful entry above, by the way, was written by Steve Bowbrick, a friend of mine from the crazy Internet bubble days in London - the first bubble, people. We're talking '96-97. Steve's one of our guest authors over at newcritics, and one of Britain's original digital entrepreneurs. But he'd just lost his father and was journeying back to Ireland to be with his mother. And in his three-sentence Twitter post, written on his mobile phone, Steve told such a human story.

So I started to pay more attention, and found myself reading the Twitter posts of strangers on the service's general feed. I didn't really care what they were doing; this wasn't a voyeuristic journey. And it really wouldn't be, unless you had a big-time jones for the mundane. No, I went looking for words to stitch together. Because although Twitter is seen as another cool social networking tool - a way to stay plugged in, as if that's what we really need - I saw it as a way to plumb the common mindset, to see what communal wisdom and beauty and insight the group of geeks could register with their thumb a-flyin'.

These lines are taken from Twitter posts today, many of them simply "texted" to the Twitter website (which limits each post to 140 characters). The assembly is mine.

OnePouring another cup of coffee and trying to get motivated.Revelling in playing the Clash at inappropriate levels of volume.Napping is seriously heaven.Rip, mix, burn.

Twowaiting for my clothes to drytoday is not starting well. at least i didn't spill the coffee on my pants.underway. crying as usual. i hate this part.ate sandwiches at lunch.

This can become addictive: the slight relationship between the words and their original writers. The scrolling collective stream of consciousness. I may do more - please contribute your own.

UPDATE: Steve Bowbrick has a moving elegy to his father up on his blog. It's entitled A Dictionary of My Dad and it's well worth a full read; here's an excerpt:

Knowledge – proper, factual knowledge – stood, for my Dad, for freedom.
Freedom from ignorance and poverty and the arbitrary nature of
existence. We shared that love of knowledge but I think the difference
is a lack of urgency: I guess I can take it or leave it. For him it was
life or death.

My Dirty Life & Times

Tom Watson is a journalist, author, media critic, entrepreneur and consultant who has worked at the confluence of media technology and social change for more than 20 years. This long-running blog is my personal outlet - an idiosyncratic view of the world. "My dirty life and times" is a nod to the late, great Warren Zevon because some days I feel like my shadow's casting me.